Jekyll2021-06-12T18:00:07-04:00https://itp.nopivnick.com/feed.xmlnnp @ ITPA blog documenting my coursework at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP).Noah Pivnicknopivnick@nyu.eduThesis » Experts2020-04-11T13:00:00-04:002020-04-11T13:00:00-04:00https://itp.nopivnick.com/thesis/thesis-experts<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AEE1xlNY9GhK56v-mkOzEhCuy9_PWeINetw">To do » class » Thesis » Luna Cycle » experts</a></li>
</ul>Noah Pivnicknopivnick@nyu.eduTo do » class » Thesis » Luna Cycle » expertsCabinets of Wonder » DSNY: Initial Thoughts2020-03-08T14:21:01-04:002020-03-08T14:21:01-04:00https://itp.nopivnick.com/cabinets/dsny-initial-thoughts<h1 id="scraped-from-an-email-exchange-with-idit">Scraped from an email exchange with Idit:</h1>
<blockquote>
<p>I think your ‘smart’ garbage pile (made of kid-safe foam objects and was it RFID chips to trigger content?) is interesting, not just as a general sorting activity but also as a kind of historical simulation. According to the Robin Nagle talk in Maggie Lee’s shared Drive folder, historically there were ‘gleaners’ (scavengers, destitute women and children mostly) that picked through garbage for materials that could be sold. Apparently Col. George E. Waring, Jr. (founding head of the Dept. of Street Cleaning) made certain the gleaners still had that income when he took over.</p>
<p>So maybe one aspect of the garbage pile activity is about picking what was historically ‘the best stuff’. Also interesting is Waring had a fantasy (as has every commissioner since according to Robin Nagle) that sales of reclaimed materials would make the department revenue neutral. So maybe that’s a challenge: pick through enough stuff of enough value to make recycling revenue offset taxes? Maybe the foam garbage gets dumped on the pile faster than it can be optimally sorted, or there’s a tension between removing what’s bad for the environment versus removing what has value? If it’s made of foam, ‘garbage’ could fall from the ceiling and bonk kids on the head while they scramble to dig through the pile. That could be fun. Maybe it changes over the course of the activity: it starts off as historically ‘valuable’ stuff falling from the ceiling and increasingly the garbage becomes more modern and the task changes to picking out stuff that’s recyclable and/or bad for the environment.</p>
<p>But I also like your idea of a Garbageheim visitor center at the foot of a pier that leads out to the barge. In particular I like it because it juxtaposes two different ways of measuring time through waste accumulation: the landfill (Garbageheim Visitor Center) is time along the vertical axis whereas the barge (looking back at the waterfront) is time along the horizontal axis. In other words, the Manhattan shoreline expanded <em>outward</em> over time whereas landfills pile <em>upward</em> over time.</p>
<p>175 Water Street was the site of <a href="https://nauticalarch.org/projects/ronson-ship-excavation/">an important archeological dig</a> that discovered a colonial era shipwreck that was purposely sunk to create a foundation for more construction:</p>
<p>We could speculate the barge is <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/175+Water+St,+New+York,+NY+10038,+USA">at the end of Pier 15</a> with a huge picture frame window that looks back at 175 Water Street. Maybe while the audience looks back toward Manhattan through the huge picture frame window there’s some AR headset experience that ‘peels back’ the horizontal layers of time as the shoreline recedes and eventually reveals the a rendering of the shipwreck.</p>
</blockquote>Noah Pivnicknopivnick@nyu.eduScraped from an email exchange with Idit:Cabinets of Wonder » Diorama2020-03-04T09:58:11-05:002020-03-04T09:58:11-05:00https://itp.nopivnick.com/cabinets/diorama<h1 id="narrative">Narrative</h1>
<p>My mother bought land in Delaware County, NY when I was born and for a certain period of my childhood she, her partner and I would make the trip by car most weekends out of the year.</p>
<p>I was perhaps six during one particularly cold winter night when my mother hit a deer while I was sleeping in the back seat. And yet, I’ve always had a clear picture in my mind of the deer dashing across the road in our headlights. As though I’d been looking through the windshield myself.</p>
<p>This image is even clearer in my mind than the moment when, nearly two decades later, it was I who struck a deer while making that very same drive, at night, as an adult.</p>
<h1 id="curatorial-statement">Curatorial statement</h1>
<p>This is one in a series of dioramas depicting mis-rememberings that have been reconstructed – or perhaps mis-constructed – by individuals from their own false memories.</p>
<p>Artists were challenged to create a diorama which portrays two unique perspectives, visual as well as interpretive.</p>
<h1 id="making-of">Making of</h1>
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<h1 id="front-perspective">Front perspective</h1>
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<h1 id="rear-perspective">Rear perspective</h1>
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</div>Noah Pivnicknopivnick@nyu.eduNarrativeCabinets of Wonder » Field Trip: MoST2020-02-26T13:52:11-05:002020-02-26T13:52:11-05:00https://itp.nopivnick.com/cabinets/field-trip-most<h1 id="museum-of-squandered-time">Museum of Squandered Time</h1>
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</div>Noah Pivnicknopivnick@nyu.eduMuseum of Squandered TimeThesis » Update: Week 42020-02-23T12:00:00-05:002020-02-23T12:00:00-05:00https://itp.nopivnick.com/thesis/thesis-update-week-4<p>Still more office hours w/ faculty (though fewer this week than last):</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s65/sh/872a1b68-24ed-4949-8a91-5928bbd66119/b915664abfb5efa2cdeda7551f4df39a">2020-02-20 » meet w/ Danny Rozin re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/shard/s65/sh/8042ad16-1ce7-4844-8ff4-25ef7649b608/0a3f56ba95c1b7c6a4378c4a43ba1890">2020-02-20 » meet w/ Mimi Yin re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Early last week I tracked down a <a href="https://www.cutfilm.com/">Steenbeck repair and maintenance business</a> out of Boston and sent an inquiry to the generic email contact address.</p>
<p>I got a reply from Dwight Cody (pretty sure he’s a one man operation) and was completely thrown when he asked if I was using the parts for an art project. It took me a few but I realized my school email signature mentions ITP. He must have done some googling. Another round of email and I had photos and quotes for the parts I’m looking for.</p>
<p>It was thrilling to have tracked down a vendor but I had to exercise some restraint to keep from impulse buying without first laying eyes and hands on something physical. So I wrote Natalie LeBrecht, the Program Admin for <a href="https://tisch.nyu.edu/grad-film">Graduate Film at Tisch</a>, in search of a Steenbeck.</p>
<p>Natalie was at a loss but later that night I ran into classmate Ryan Grippi who works at Tisch full time in Production. He pulled out his phone, made a call, hung up and said I’d find what I was looking for at 721 Broadway in Room 1171, adding if I asked for Ben Pessin in Post I’d probably make his day.</p>
<p>That was Tuesday.</p>
<p>On Wednesday I found the flatbed shoved in an alcove, forsaken and all but forgotten, in a room full of students cutting video on high end workstations.</p>
<p><img src="/assets/2020-02-23/IMG_5684.PNG" alt="Steenbeck flatbed film editor console." /></p>
<p><img src="/assets/2020-02-23/IMG_5664.PNG" alt="Detail of Steenbeck flatbed film editor console." /></p>
<p><img src="/assets/2020-02-23/IMG_5672.PNG" alt="Detail of Steenbeck flatbed film editor console." /></p>
<p><img src="/assets/2020-02-23/IMG_5662.PNG" alt="Detail of Steenbeck flatbed film editor console." /></p>
<p>I went out of my way to tell the TA what I was up to but he must have narc’d on me because Ben Pessin showed up not five minutes after I started playing with the console. Nice guy. He looked vaguely amused when I told him what I was up to but eager to help and gave me contact info for a Paul Tomasko in Saugerties who also maintains and refurbishes Steenbecks.</p>
<p>I gave Paul Tomasko a ring the next day. Another nice guy. Old school film technicians are often lovely people. Can’t say for sure what was going through Tomasko’s head when I told him I was sourcing Steenbeck parts to build a control surface for reading electronic text but he stopped to think when I asked him if he could describe the difference in ‘feel’ between the two different designs (detents and cam-actuated microswitches vs magnetic steps and a pot). He had a hard time giving it language and kept defaulting to lever position and speed in frames per second but he seemed to appreciate that I was interested in specifics.</p>
<p>I suppose the kooks who started this whole ‘physical computing’ thing at ITP must have had some idea what they were doing.</p>Noah Pivnicknopivnick@nyu.eduStill more office hours w/ faculty (though fewer this week than last):Thesis » Update: Week 32020-02-18T11:50:49-05:002020-02-18T11:50:49-05:00https://itp.nopivnick.com/thesis/thesis-update-week-3<p>More office hours w/ faculty:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AEFQ3eVQHHZCSKXnl2OcmwKznyQIE5k2BaM">2020-02-11 » meet w/ Sarah Rothberg re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AEFj1d0BXldKCoWSoZXfIOZqjeWFcM-afpA">2020-02-11 » meet w/ Stefani Bardin re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AEFDIUIqKIRGU4Ivv6s9uEIxxjz7-fhw0sk">2020-02-13 » meet w/ Mimi Yin re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AEFxl3L0h55Kv6xxi3CnHXRyp9PJqtnh78c">2020-02-13 » meet w/ Tom Igoe re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Mimi in particular continues to ask difficult questions about narrative structure and in what way it’s related to / navigable by tangible interface. Her questions are surgical in their precision.</p>
<p>Tom and Mimi both seemed to think a turntable as a shared interface is a promising route.</p>
<p>Tom even went so far as to suggest a turntable is elegant in its simplicity of interaction but I’m not sure it’s enough. I think each user may need their own secondary controller. A kind of ‘multiplier’ for lack of a better word, a way to modify speed and direction through the loop.</p>
<p>My mother cut film for many years. As a toddler I entertained myself stacking yellow 35mm film cores on the cutting room floor while she worked on a <a href="http://www.steenbeck.com/">Steenbeck</a> flatbed.</p>
<p>Steenbecks have <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/nopivnick/itp_class_thesis/#interface_speed-direction-sentiment">a lovely interface</a> for changing the speed and the direction film travels through the transport. I’ve seen it variously referred to as a ‘speed switcher’, a ‘paddle switch’, and a ‘hand controller’. This may be the route I end up taking.</p>Noah Pivnicknopivnick@nyu.eduMore office hours w/ faculty:Thesis » Update: Weeks 0, 1, 22020-02-11T12:00:00-05:002020-02-11T12:00:00-05:00https://itp.nopivnick.com/thesis/thesis-update-weeks-0-1-2<p>Week 0:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AEEM-6cAEU5LRZyWH3U5XlePkLljMA2n534">2020-01-23 » meet w/ Mimi Yin re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AEHJA7MiT55NdKtuiWQSrR_pWIagK4d4nWQ">2020-01-28 » meet w/ Arnab Chakravarty re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Week 1:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AEH03zNMUBZNM5jyBYcLZVEQAwv567T8dvQ">2020-01-29 » meet w/ Bora Aydintug re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AEFAFPaXLlZA6rIJKgzCAa6drvDEdj8VhC0">2020-01-30 » meet w/ Allison Parrish re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AEHQ8X4v6K1AWbOHR4NZ_R3-8v4eoN8lcd4">2020-01-30 » meet w/ August Luhrs re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AEGCLHFqb15GWKoL2b4Tt4MEFgwDPlMsXSY">2020-01-30 » meet w/ Mimi Yin re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AEE0X260K-BM9riXCeXn527ekeh0nuNTZE8">2020-02-03 » meet w/ Ben Light re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Week 2:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AEHFixFVNT5OIaa5PadmskuHTy0ROuHYVI4">2020-02-04 » meet w/ Margaret Smith re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AEHFixFVNT5OIaa5PadmskuHTy0ROuHYVI4">2020-02-05 » meet w/ Gabe Barcia-Columbo re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AEEDKx-LrSpNfqvIatWrVxovZfnItrn4bYI">2020-02-06 » meet w/ Danny Rozin re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AEEdSlqULdRMYIhMm1nC-RLyrUCbT8Mo14g">2020-02-06 » meet w/ Mimi Yin re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AEGHmwMcsnlMjpSfHqePpj3I7LmKnl2lKh8">2020-02-06 » meet w/ Nuntinee Tansrisakul re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.evernote.com/l/AEFIue51NXROvLg1049eKkeBhlRj_bQu-Rg">2020-02-06 » meet w/ Tom Igoe re: Luna Cycle</a></li>
</ul>Noah Pivnicknopivnick@nyu.eduWeek 0:Thesis » Dream Review: Luna Cycle, An Interactive Installation at ELO 20202020-02-04T12:00:00-05:002020-02-04T12:00:00-05:00https://itp.nopivnick.com/thesis/thesis-review-luna-cycle<p>This year the <a href="https://elo.cah.ucf.edu/">Electronic Literature Organization’s 2020 Conference and Media Arts Festival</a> (July 16-19) was hosted by the University of Central Florida on UCF’s downtown campus in Orlando, Florida.</p>
<p>The speakers and presenters who participate in the conference proper are predominantly scholars and academics working in the humanities, some of whom are themselves practitioners. In this reviewer’s opinion, the talks at ELO can be somewhat erudite. Truth be told, what brings me to the ELO each year is the exhibition track.</p>
<p>From the 2020 Conference website:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Installation pieces are frequently designed to be experienced through a particular interface, and may in some cases take time for a user to traverse. They might include physical elements (we particularly encourage you to think about ways to make use of materiality alongside the digital) or be designed as a solo experience.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s precisely that fusing of the material and the digital, the prospect of some newly imagined tangible interface for reading electronic literature, that convinced me to attend this year and the piece that really shined was conceived by Noah Pivnick, recent graduate of the <a href="https://tisch.nyu.edu/itp">Interactive Telecommunications Program</a> at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.</p>
<p>The work is titled Luna Cycle. It it was a small installation hidden away in a make shift annex off the main exhibition gallery. The room is completely dark save for the title of the piece in white text reflected on a clear pane of glass in a window frame suspended from the ceiling above a table and chair.</p>
<p>Pivnick has made some interesting choices. This is no branching narrative. There is no intricate web of links between and among various passages hidden beneath the screen. There’s nothing to click, nothing to tap, no explicit choices to be made.</p>
<p>The artist’s statement includes the following:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The piece is meant to evoke the withering of a relationship over time using cycles of repetition punctuated by subtle shifts in narrative tone, and to have those shifts seep through the screen subliminally each time the reader passes through the loop.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Repetition is a tricky prospect in any narrative, especially so in the genre of electronic literature. But here it works. The loop serves as a kind of narrative resignation. It reinforces the story of two people experiencing a relationship in decay who nonetheless still clearly love one another.</p>
<p>Much has been said about electronic fiction laking a clear sense of progression and an intuitive sense of navigation. Unlike longer works of text-based electronic narrative, Luna Cycle is perhaps a ten minute experience in total. Without giving away too much, it’s fair to say the reader’s choice to walk away from the piece actually serves the narrative.</p>
<p>Behind the scenes, there’s been some contention between the more established digital exhibition-artists with works of high production value and the smaller, less well known experimental writer/designers. The former want their work shown in traditional, formal gallery spaces. Since those spaces are expensive and limited in capacity, this means opening the exhibition to only a few submissions. Which is a shame. One can only imagine were there more pieces like Luna Cycle engaging thoughtfully with the intersection between form, narrative, interaction and interface.</p>Noah Pivnicknopivnick@nyu.eduThis year the Electronic Literature Organization’s 2020 Conference and Media Arts Festival (July 16-19) was hosted by the University of Central Florida on UCF’s downtown campus in Orlando, Florida.Discomfort » Final: Documentation2019-12-12T15:04:40-05:002019-12-12T15:04:40-05:00https://itp.nopivnick.com/discomfort/discomfort-final-documentation<h1 id="video--photos">Video & Photos</h1>
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<h1 id="project-description">Project Description</h1>
<p>Our final for Uses of Discomfort revolves around the materiality of glass.</p>
<p>The sound of glass shattering is visceral and startling. It evokes disquieting associations: the tragic loss of a family heirloom; being menaced with the jagged end of a broken bottle; a rock thrown in hate through a storefront window; the chilling sound of home invasion. It also signifies tension and danger, followed by the shout that stops you at the kitchen threshold: “Don’t come in here! There’s broken glass!”</p>
<p>Glass is a material rich with symbolic meaning. The symbolism of shattered glass is perhaps most powerfully evoked by Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass, during which the Nazis perpetrated systematic attacks on Jewish people and property.</p>
<p>We also drew inspiration from the idiom “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”. The admonition to refrain from judging others lest we be judged ourselves draws a correlation between the materiality of glass (transparent frangible barriers separating inside from outside, self from other, private from public) and flaws in human nature.</p>
<p>And finally, this piece is about memory. Glass has a long history as an information storage medium. Prior to the advent of cellulose nitrate film, photographic emulsions were captured on glass plate negatives. Modern laptop hard drive platters are made from glass. Silicon, one of the elemental building blocks of silicate glass, is the substrate on which the ubiquitous microchip is fabricated.</p>
<p>Memories, like the little cubes of tempered safety glass, are but fragments of a former whole. A point of no return is as inherent to the material as it is to memory. Once broken, glass cannot be returned to its original state, and memory, be it precious or shameful, cannot actually restore a past event. Some memories are sharp and piercing, others are treasured and framed in glass. Memories must be preserved to keep from losing them, be it in the mind or with physical media, and concealed to keep them private, be it in a locked drawer or with encryption.</p>
<p>But like glass, so too encryption can be broken. This is true now more than ever as raw computational power grows exponentially, cryptanalysis becomes ever more sophisticated, and the companies with whom we trust our data become increasingly ethically questionable. We’re taught it’s foolhardy to share our data (though we do it just the same) and when no longer needed, it’s not enough to erase, we must shred the disks and smash the drives to be sure there’s nothing left to reassemble.</p>
<h1 id="user-journey">User Journey</h1>
<p><img src="/assets/discomfort/2019-12-12/during/glass-map.png" alt="User journey." class="align-center" /></p>
<h1 id="experience">Experience</h1>
<p>Ours was by design a small, intimate experience. Our participants were less an audience, more so guests.</p>
<p>Aaron and I made no broad attempt to recruit guests, posted no announcements to the student list. Instead, we each choose two individuals and asked them to join us. They were told nothing other than to meet us on the floor in the lounge at the designated time.</p>
<p>After collecting our guests, we walked as a group down the length of ITP’s exterior hall, only stopping at the furthest window sill counter, where we’d propped up six ⅛” thick 8.5”x11” glass plates. Each plate had been etched with a unique QR Code, three bearing Aaron’s image at their center, three bearing my image.</p>
<p>Our guests are asked to choose one plate each from the three. They wait while their host carries the first plate of glass chosen, ducks into a huddle room at the end of the hall, the interior of which is obscured from sight by a black curtain.</p>
<p>The host emerges, collects the first guest, asks them to please close their eyes and leads them by hand past the curtain into the room.</p>
<p>Eyes still closed, the quest is handed a pair of safety glasses and asked to put them on. Finally, their hands outstretched, they are handed a heavy irregularly shaped object.</p>
<p>The guest is then told they may open their eyes.</p>
<p>In their hands they are holding a jagged piece of concrete rubble, roughly the size of a melon. The rubble is tied to a green cord, the other end of which is fixed to a single point in the center of the ceiling.</p>
<p>In front of them, the glass pane they selected just moments ago hangs suspended a few feet off the ground by two thin pieces of string attached to the ceiling.</p>
<p>The guest is given no explicit instructions. A conversation may or may not ensue. Together, host and guest wait for the act to unfold.</p>
<h1 id="reflection">Reflection</h1>
<ul>
<li>The experience could be improved if the sound of glass breaking behind the curtain was only within earshot of the next guest waiting to participate. if they are privy to the sound more than once, they’ve begun to understand it’s an integral part of the experience rather than an accident or unintended consequence of some as of yet unknown event</li>
<li>Participants, having just completed the experience, ought to leave through a separate exit without being given the opportunity to interact with the next guest</li>
<li>It might be interesting if the etching of the glass were itself incorporated into the piece, an act of making shared by both the host and the guest might further complicate the guest’s relationship to the object they are later asked to destroy</li>
<li>The experience might be made more uncomfortable by leaving the guest alone in the room once they’ve been handed the rubble. Even better, constructing the installation in such a way that there is no possibility for the guest to opt out. Perhaps they are standing on a platform with a railing, their arms outstretching and holding the concrete rubble with no way to set it down.</li>
</ul>Noah Pivnicknopivnick@nyu.eduVideo & PhotosCAtN » Final2019-12-12T09:34:11-05:002019-12-12T09:34:11-05:00https://itp.nopivnick.com/narrative/catn-final<p>For my final, it was a toss up between refining either <a href="https://itp.nopivnick.com/narrative/first-inform/">my Inform sketch</a> or <a href="https://itp.nopivnick.com/narrative/first-twine/">my Twine sketch</a>.</p>
<p>My intention for the Inform piece was to have the interactor (to use the IF parlance) enact a sequence of steps required to open a cabin during dead of winter, put a child to bed, and start a fire to heat the house. A kind of internal narrative tied to the plodding steps of routine getting situated after a long drive.</p>
<p>I opted instead for the Twine.</p>
<p>Arguably, the Twine piece puts more emphasis on narrative than it does on computation. It’s not a branching narrative. There is no web of links between and among various passages. Looking at the story map it’s plain to see it’s just a loop, albeit stylized.</p>
<p><img src="/assets/catn/2019-12-12/luna_story-map.png" alt="Twine's Story Map view" /></p>
<p>The Twine piece is meant to evoke the withering of a relationship over time using cycles of repetition punctuated by shift in tone, and to have that shift seep through the screen subliminally each time the reader passes through the loop. I like the idea of the loop as a kind of narrative resignation.</p>
<p>The change in tone is sinusoidal. It oscillates between euphoric, mundane, somber, mundane then back to euphoric. The transition happens after every complete cycle of the narrative loop using modulo.</p>
<div class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code><table class="rouge-table"><tbody><tr><td class="rouge-gutter gl"><pre class="lineno">1
2
3
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</pre></td><td class="rouge-code"><pre><<if visited() % 4 is 3>>
/* Bad */
"Bad"
<<elseif visited() % 2 is 0>>
/* Blah */
"Blah"
<<elseif visited() % 4 is 1>>
/* Bliss */
"Bliss"
<</if>>
</pre></td></tr></tbody></table></code></pre></div></div>
<p>This has been an interesting exercise given my focus on hypertext narrative in undergrad. The authoring environment we used at the time offered no programmatic way to change the text within a given lexia (or node, or passage) over the course of the reading. Yes, there were conditionals, but they were assigned exclusively to links and therefor navigation. The text in any given lexia was fixed.</p>
<p>If one wanted to affect a subtle change based on what came before, you had two choices: either maintain separate lexia that contain slight variations on a given passage, or write in such a way as to accommodate different readings of the same text depending on context.</p>
<p>Like StorySpace, Twine makes easy enough work of the first option. Unlike StorySpace, Twine makes it possible to programmatically alter the content of a given passage over the course of a reading through the use of variables, conditionals, loops, or any combination thereof.</p>
<p>The second option, however, is less about computation than it is about artistry. It employs a particular kind of composition, a carefully crafted fluidity of interpretation (an inexactness, perhaps) that magically conforms to any and all lexia from which the reader might possibly arrive.</p>
<p>From a workability standpoint, this second approach was the more practicable. Easier to keep track of the shape of the text. Easier to ‘debug’. But from a narrative standpoint, it was actually <a href="https://www.wired.com/2013/04/hypertext/">the more interesting challenge</a>. It required one to think about one’s writing – structurally, aesthetically, and thematically – in a different way. It was, I would argue, at the core of what imbued hypertext with the promise of a new literary form.</p>
<p>Twine is a more robust tool than StorySpace, no doubt. And it’s worth emphasizing the unlimited potential that comes with open standards and <a href="https://twinelab.net/custom-macros-for-sugarcube-2/">extensibility</a>. And yet, I can’t help but feel Twine’s syntax is somehow disruptive, if not destructive, to the text itself. On the one hand, it’s possible to accomplish great variation with using syntax that is approachable. On the other hand, that very same syntax does a kind of violence to the writing, making it difficult to actually compose in the editor.</p>
<p>My final is <a href="http://j.mp/2PfpTgk">here</a>.</p>Noah Pivnicknopivnick@nyu.eduFor my final, it was a toss up between refining either my Inform sketch or my Twine sketch.